Thomas F. Walsh (1925-1991) was an American literature professor at Georgetown University beginning in 1956. In his early career, he concentrated his research on Nathaniel Hawthorne and the American Transcendentalists; he later focused on Wallace Stevens and Flannery O'Connor. He met Katherine Anne Porter in 1960 and subsequently published several scholarly works on her writing. Walsh also became acquainted with Porter's friend, Mary Louis Doherty, during his frequent visits to Mexico, where Porter had lived sporadically between 1920 and 1931. In the mid-1970s, he began work on a book that combined his interest in Porter with his love of Mexico. That book, Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico: The Illusion of Eden, was published posthumously in 1992. The collection includes biographical materials, correspondence, publications, work papers for Walsh's books and articles, legal documents, audio tapes, and photographs.

Important Information for Users of the Collection

Restrictions:

This collection is open for research.

Preferred citation:

Thomas Walsh papers, Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries.

Photocopies of original materials may be provided for a fee and at the discretion of the curator. Please see our Duplication of Materials policy for more information. Queries regarding publication rights and copyright status of materials within this collection should be directed to the appropriate curator.

Status:

This collection is PROCESSED.

Historical Note

Thomas Francis Walsh was born on December 30, 1925, in Boston, Massachusetts. His secondary education was completed at the Boston Latin School. His undergraduate studies at Boston College were interrupted by service in the U. S. Navy during World War II. He took his B. A. from Boston College in 1949, his M. A. in 1951. He held a graduate teaching fellowship at the University of Wisconsin at Madison from 1951 to 1956, where he completed his doctoral studies in 1956. In that same year, he received an appointment in the English Department of Georgetown College to teach eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American literature and renaissance British literature. American literature was his primary scholarly interest throughout his teaching career, all of which was served at Georgetown University. His early publications were primarily on Nathaniel Hawthorne and on American Transcendentalism. He then turned his attention to more recent American authors: Wallace Stevens, Flannery O'Connor, and Katherine Anne Porter.

Professor Walsh's interest in Katherine Anne Porter was inspired by her. In the summer of 1960, he met her several times at the Georgetown home of Marcella Comes Winslow. Several times, he and his friend Louis Dupre, at that time also a professor at Georgetown, escorted Porter to mass at the Priory at Georgetown, and Porter reciprocated by entertaining them at dinner in her home in Georgetown. Professor Walsh's first work on Porter, "Katherine Anne Porter's 'Noon Wine Devils'" appeared in 1968.

In the summer of 1958, Professor Walsh made his first trip to Mexico. This was to become an annual pilgrimage, a result of his love of the country and its people which grew from his interest in its art, literature, culture, and politics. In the summer of 1963, he directed Georgetown University's summer program at the Universidad Ibero-Americana in Mexico City. In Mexico City on April 15, 1963, he married Maria de los Angeles Garcia, who had been born and raised there. Their sons Thomas and Eugene were born in 1964 and 1967.

In the mid-1970s Professor Walsh decided to combine his interest in Mexico with his interest in Katherine Anne Porter. The result was his most important work, Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico: The Illusion of Eden (1992), a study of the influence of Mexico on Porter's life and work. He began the work with the assistance of a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend in 1976. In April 1976, he attempted to renew his acquaintance with Porter, who was then living in College Park, Maryland. That summer in Mexico City, he met Mary Louis Doherty, one of Porter's friends from Mexico in 1920-1921. Doherty urged Professor Walsh to renew his attempt to meet personally with Porter.

In June 1977, Professor Walsh called on Porter in College Park, presenting her with the bark painting by Inocencio Jimenez Chino which once hung in the Katherine Anne Porter Room in McKeldin Library. For a period of approximately eight months in 1977 and 1978, Professor Walsh visited Porter in her College Park apartment, interviewing her about her stays in Mexico and her Mexican works. With her permission, he also photographed her manuscripts and photographs having to do with Mexico. At this time, Porter had not yet conveyed these items to the University of Maryland because she first intended to write her own account of her Mexican experiences.

Although Porter's deteriorating health brought an end to these meetings, Professor Walsh continued his work on Porter, publishing ten articles between 1979 and 1991. These drew from his interviews with her as well as from her manuscripts. In the 1988-1989 academic year, Professor Walsh worked full-time on his monograph supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The completed manuscript was submitted to the University of Texas Press in April 1990. When he died on November 2, 1991, Professor Walsh's Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico was in press. He had been able to make final corrections to the galleys of the book.

Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Papers of Thomas F. Walsh include materials which cover the period from 1897 to 1992; they were collected from approximately 1960 to 1991. There are biographical materials; manuscripts and correspondence relating to lectures, conferences, and scholarly publications; files of research materials; spiral notebooks and notecards containing notes from various sources; audio recordings; photographs and negatives; and copies of books by Katherine Anne Porter. The bulk of the material is composed of Professor Walsh's research materials related to his various scholarly publications on Katherine Anne Porter. These materials include photocopies and transcriptions of primary manuscripts by Porter and others and photocopies of published work by Porter. They also include photocopies and originals of various secondary material on Porter, Mexico, and other subjects (books and parts of books, scholarly articles, dissertations and a master's thesis, newspaper and magazine articles, and book reviews).

Custodial History and Acquisition Information

Thomas F. Walsh donated a few miscellaneous materials to the Special Collections Division at the University of Maryland at College Park Libraries in the 1980s. These included offprints of his articles on Katherine Anne Porter. Prior to his death, he expressed the desire for his materials to go to the University of Maryland, College Park, because the Libraries' collection represents the major archive of Katherine Anne Porter materials. His widow and sons made the decision to donate all of his Porter materials, including those designated as the Thomas F. Walsh Papers, to the Libraries. The materials were formally conveyed on June 26, 1992.

Processing Information

In mid-September 1991, Professor Walsh, his wife, and a friend spent an afternoon going through Professor Walsh's files and research materials connected with Katherine Anne Porter. Some items were discarded, and some additional items were placed in folders, labelled, and interfiled in the existing files in Walsh's home office. Still other items were removed by the friend for use in completing certain tasks for the publication of Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico.

After Mrs. Walsh made the decision to donate her husband's papers to the University of Maryland at College Park Libraries, she and an assistant spent approximately two weeks, May 18 to 29, 1992, preparing the papers for professional appraisal on June 1, 1992. During this period, Mrs. Walsh discovered additional research materials, correspondence, and manuscripts relating to Professor Walsh's work on Katherine Anne Porter which had not been filed in his home office. These items were added to the Thomas F. Walsh papers. Loose materials were incorporated into the existing folders. Anomalous items within individual folders were removed and placed in other folders, either an existing folder or a new one. The preliminary inventory for the Thomas F. Walsh papers encompassed the contents of two file drawers as well as several additional boxes of miscellaneous materials.

The papers of Thomas F. Walsh were packed in six boxes on June 24, 1992, the day on which they were transported to the University of Maryland. With the exception of the materials which were transferred from two of Walsh's file cabinet drawers and Walsh's working card file, the materials had no arrangement made by Walsh. As much as possible Walsh's arrangement of the contents of the two file drawers, primary and secondary research materials and correspondence, has been retained in Series IV. The working card file remains intact in Series VI, Notecards 1. The remaining materials were arranged between June 29, and July 25, 1992. The Mary Louis Doherty postcards which were originally filed with Walsh's working card file have been removed and filed as Series II in the Mary Louis Doherty Papers.

Paper clips have been removed from the materials, and letters have been removed from envelopes and flattened. Photocopies have been made of all newspaper clippings, and the clippings have been discarded. Any bibliographical information which might have been lost in the process has been transcribed onto the photocopies. The photographs which were interfiled in Walsh's card file have been photocopied. Walsh's autograph notations on the backs of these photographs have been transcribed onto the photocopies. The photocopies are filed in the original location; the photographs have been removed to the photographs in Series VIII.

Encoded by:

EAD markup created using EAD database in Microsoft Access. Markup completed by Michael Yates, August 2005.

Detailed Description of the Collection

This series contains biographical materials as well as manuscripts and correspondence relating to lectures given or conferences attended by Walsh. The biographical materials include the pamphlet, Thomas Francis Walsh: A Memorial Tribute (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 1992), Walsh's 1977-1978 faculty member's annual report, and various other curricula vitae. The other files contain copies of papers delivered at conferences at Georgia State University and the University of Maryland, correspondence with individuals at Texas A & M University and the University of Maryland, copies of conference brochures and schedules from "Katherine Anne Porter and Texas" and "Katherine Anne Porter at One Hundred," and a copy of the National Endowment for the Humanities grant proposal for "Katherine Anne Porter at One Hundred" submitted in 1989. This series also contains materials associated with the August 20, 1992, presentation in honor of Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico: The Illusion of Eden held at the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico (UNAM, National Autonomous University of Mexico), Mexico City.

Description

Series

Box / Reel

Folder / Frame

[Biographical Materials], 1977-1992

series 1

box 1

folder 1

"Porter and Mexico" -- Georgia State University, November 1990

series 1

box 1

folder 2

[Katherine Anne Porter and Texas], (April 1988)

series 1

box 1

folder 3

[Katherine Anne Porter at One Hundred], (May 1991)

series 1

box 1

folder 4

[Katherine Anne Porter at One Hundred], (May 1991)

series 1

box 1

folder 5

Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico -- National Autonomous University of Mexico, August 1992

series 1

box 1

folder 6

Virginia Spencer Carr -- Casebook on "Flowering Judas", [1991]

series 1

box 1

folder 7

Series 2: Correspondence, 1960-1991 (0.25 linear feet)

This series consists of letters to and from Thomas F. Walsh as well as some miscellaneous materials (drafts of scholarly articles, correspondence from others, applications) related to individual correspondence files. Letters printed from Walsh's computer disks both by him and by his wife after his death have been added to the files of letters with individuals. Also, some letters to Walsh originally filed in his personal correspondence file have been moved to the file for a specific individual. There are individual files for persons (i.e., Virginia Spencer Carr, Mary Louis Doherty, Joan Givner, etc.), files for governmental agencies and institutions (National Endowment for the Humanities, University of Illinois Press), and subject files (Searching Correspondence with Libraries, Uncollected Prose of KAP). The correspondence with the University of Texas Press and with various other presses and institutions concerning Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico is contained in Series 3.

Description

Series

Box / Reel

Folder / Frame

[Mary Louis Doherty], 1976-1981

series 2

box 1

folder 8

Joan Givner, [1979-1990]

series 2

box 1

folder 9

National Endowment for the Humanities, [1976-1988]

series 2

box 1

folder 10

[Paul Porter], 1977-1990

series 2

box 1

folder 11

Searching Correspondence with Libraries, [1976-1988]

series 2

box 1

folder 12

Mary Titus, [circa 1985-1990]

series 2

box 1

folder 13

Uncollected Prose of KAP, [1990-1991]

series 2

box 1

folder 14

[University of Illinois Press], 1986-1988

series 2

box 1

folder 15

[Darlene Harbour Unrue], 1983-1987

series 2

box 1

folder 16

[Thomas F. Walsh--Disk Letters], 1987-1990

series 2

box 1

folder 17

[Thomas F. Walsh--Personal Correspondence to], 1960-1990

series 2

box 1

folder 18

Series 3: Scholarly Publications, 1968-1992 (2.00 linear feet)

This series contains two parts. The first, Articles, contains published and unpublished articles by Walsh and related materials. These include a photocopy of an article reprinted in a book, correspondence concerned with the publication of individual articles, drafts, notes, page proofs, offprints, and related secondary materials. The second part, Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico: The Illusion of Eden, contains materials connected with the publication of Walsh's critical study of Katherine Anne Porter. There are three separate early manuscript versions of the work as well as a revised introduction for the third of these. Also included are a photocopy of the copyedited final manuscript with Walsh's autograph notations, the copy of the manuscript used as setting copy for the book, the author's set of marked galleys, and several drafts of the index for the book. Finally, there are a total of five folders of correspondence. One holds correspondence with the University of Texas Press (including the contract for the book); the other four folders contain Walsh's correspondence concerning permissions.

This series consists of primary and secondary materials which Walsh collected during the course of his research on Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico. It contains four parts: Katherine Anne Porter, Mexico and Related Subjects, Other Subjects, and Notes. By far the largest of these is the first. The first part has been further subdivided into primary and secondary materials. The primary materials include both unpublished and published correspondence and works written by Katherine Anne Porter. The unpublished materials include photocopies and transcriptions of Porter manuscripts and correspondence from various sources, primarily from the Papers of Katherine Anne Porter at the University of Maryland Libraries. It also contains transcriptions of unpublished interviews with Porter. The file of Porter's letters to Josephine Herbst was obtained from the American Literature Collection at the Beinecke Library at Yale University; that of letters to Morton Zabel and Sherwood Anderson came from the Newberry Library in Chicago. The folders containing photocopies and transcriptions of Porter correspondence and manuscript materials of the period from 1918 to 1976 contain materials from various sources (including the Mary Doherty Papers), although most were obtained from the Papers of Katherine Anne Porter. The file of J. H. Retinger materials has been retained in this series because Walsh arranged it to comprise both Retinger's letters to Porter and her notes on him. The copy of Porter's unpublished story "The Princess" is a transcription made by Porter scholar Mary Titus circa 1991. Walsh's notes from his 1977-1978 interviews with Porter are also filed in this section under his heading, "KAP Speaks to Me."

The published primary materials of Katherine Anne Porter are mostly photocopies of her published book reviews, fiction, and non-fiction as well as published interviews with her. Most of these have been photocopied from periodicals, but a few have been photocopied from the books in which they originally appeared. Some of the materials have been torn from magazines and newspapers rather than photocopied. There are photocopies of an entire issue of the Magazine of Mexico (March 1921) as well as of an entire issue of Survey Graphic (May 1924); Porter made substantial contributions to both of these. Probably the most valuable materials in this section are Walsh's transcriptions and notes from the Mexico City newspaper El Heraldo de México, where Porter work was published in November and December 1920. In October 1992, these were the only copies of some of this Porter material outside of Mexico City.

The secondary materials on Porter have retained, as much as possible, Walsh's arrangement: bibliographies, criticism of Porter works, dissertations and student work, general materials on Porter, and reviews of books about Porter.

The second part of the secondary materials, Mexico and Related Subjects, contains photocopies of materials by and about individuals Porter had known in Mexico, as well as on the Mexican revolution, Mexican labor organizations, politics, art, and music. The most valuable of these materials are those Walsh discovered among the military intelligence files at the National Archives which corroborate some of the facts surrounding Porter's 1920-1921 stay in Mexico and establish the identities and activities of some of the individuals who figure in her notes from the period. There are also Walsh's materials on the Oaxaca plot of 1921, to which Porter had a connection.

The third part, Other Subjects, includes materials on a variety of subjects relating to Porter: her friends and acquaintances from New York City in the 1920s, politics, Greenwich Village, World War I, the Pan American Federation of Labor, and Texas.

The fourth part, Notes, is comprised of Walsh's autograph notes from various sources on subjects relating to Porter and to Mexico. These notes also include Walsh's own observations and critical judgements.

Series 5: Spiral Notebooks, ca. 1985-1990 (0.25 linear feet)

This series includes eight spiral notebooks containing notes taken by Professor Walsh during the course of his research on Porter and Mexico. There are notes from Porter's manuscripts, correspondence, and personal library in the Papers of Katherine Anne Porter; from manuscripts and correspondence in the Carleton Beals Collection at Boston University; from the Genevieve Taggard Papers at the New York Public Library; from various Mexican newspapers of 1920-1921; from various critical studies of Porter; and from Porter's short stories. The most significant among these are those Walsh took from Anita Brenner's unpublished diaries and correspondence of 1923-1929; they were made during one or more visits to the Mexico City home of Brenner's daughter, Susannah Glusker, in summer 1986 and/or summer 1987.

Description

Series

Box / Reel

Folder / Frame

Notebook 1 -- Georgetown University: "Green pagination all recorded." Notes taken from Carleton Beals Collection, Boston University, and from manuscripts and correspondence in the Papers of Katherine Anne Porter.

Series 6: Notecards, ca. 1985-1990 (0.50 linear feet)

This series contains two groups of notecards. The first includes five-by-eight-inch cards containing notes taken from notes, letters, and manuscripts for Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico. The second group of cards is Walsh's working card file for Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico (mostly four-by-six-inch cards with tabbed headings). The cards contain bibliographical citations for books to be checked or consulted and notes for some, notes from Porter's letters and manuscripts organized by subject or work by Porter, and notes on subjects. Interfiled are photocopies of some of Walsh's photographs of Porter's manuscripts with his autograph notes.

Description

Series

Box / Reel

Folder / Frame

Notecards 1 -- Four-by-six-inch cards (including a few three-by-five-inch cards) from Walsh's working card file for Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico with tabbed headings. -- Includes bibliographical citations for books to be checked or consulted and notes for some, notes from KAP letters and manuscripts organized by subject and KAP work, and notes on subjects. Interfiled are photocopies of some of Walsh's photographs of Porter manuscripts with his autograph notes.

series 6

box 1

folder 1

Notecards 2 -- Five-by-eight-inch cards with notes taken from notes, letters, and manuscripts for Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico.

series 6

box 1

folder 2

Series 7: Audio recordings, null (0.25 linear feet)

This series contains two audio recordings. The first is an audiocassette recording of Mexican instrumental music entitled El Fabuloso Salterio de Oro, Vol. 2, Melodias del Recuerdo; one selection included is "A la Orilla de un Palmar," which figures in Porter's "Flowering Judas." The second is an audiocassette recording of Walsh's interview with Mary Louis Doherty made sometime after the 1982 publication of Joan Givner's Katherine Anne Porter: A Life. A transcription of this interview has been placed in the Mary Louis Doherty correspondence file (Series I, Box 1, [Mary Louis Doherty, 1976-1981]).

Series 8: Photographs, 1921-1990 (3.75 linear feet)

These photographs come from four sources: Walsh's own collection, Mary Louis Doherty's photographs, the George Meany Archives, and the Papers of Katherine Anne Porter. They include black and white photographs of various sizes, negatives, and contact prints. The subjects of the majority of them are Porter manuscripts and photographs taken by Walsh in Porter's College Park apartment in 1977-1978. Other subjects include the third convention of the Pan American Federation of Labor in Mexico City in January 1921, illustrations from Manuel Gamio's La Población de Valle de Teotihuacán and the Mexican Review photographed at the Library of Congress, Mary Louis Doherty, friends of Doherty, the farm of Doherty's friend Cyrus Merriam, John Doherty, Katherine Anne Porter, Samuel Y. Yúdico, Luis N. Morones, Ward Dorrance, and Mexican and American labor leaders. The photographs are arranged in four groupings: print and slides, photographs of Porter manuscripts, contact sheet strips, and negatives.

Salomón de la Selva, Nicaraguan poet, who was an acquaintance of KAP in Mexico in the 1920s, used as an illustration in Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico, (black and white, 5" X 7") (Item 59), circa 1990

series 8

box 1

folder 22

Martín Hernandez in the maguey fields of Hacienda Tetlapayac during the filming of Sergei Eisenstein's Que Viva Mexico!, used as an illustration in Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico, original photographs in the Lilly Library, Indiana University, (black and white, 5" X 7") (Item 60), circa 1990

Negatives for some of the preceding photographs (black and white) (8 individual negatives and 84 35 mm negative strips)

series 8

box 3

folder 2

Series 9: Books, 1935-1977 (0.5 linear feet)

his series consists of autographed copies of first editions of three of Porter's books: Flowering Judas and Other Stories, A Christmas Story, and The Never-Ending Wrong. It also includes Mary Louis Doherty's personal copy of Porter's Pale Horse, Pale Rider and copies of A Defense of Circe and Ship of Fools.

Description

Series

Box / Reel

Folder / Frame

Flowering Judas and Other Stories -- New York: Harcourt, Brace -- Signed by KAP "For Anne Richards Taylor with all good wishes--17 August 1964 Washington, D.C. With love/Katherine Anne Porter.", 1935

series 9

box 1

folder 1

Pale Horse, Pale Rider -- New York: Harcourt, Brace -- Mary Doherty's copy. With dust jacket and her name in her autograph on flyleaf, 1939

series 9

box 1

folder 2

A Defense of Circe -- New York: Harcourt , Brace, 1954

series 9

box 1

folder 3

A Christmas Story -- New York: Mademoiselle -- Inscribed by KAP to Ward Dorrance. "For my dear Ward with my love as of old way back there on Confederate Hill! Katherine Anne/25 September 1959/Georgetown/ In Missouri in the summer with Miss Florence remember?", 1958

The Never-Ending Wrong -- Boston: Little, Brown -- With dust jacket. Signed by KAP. "KAP/ My proof that this story is always right, 1977

series 9

box 1

folder 6

Related Material

Related materials can be found in the Papers of Katherine Anne Porter and the Papers of Mary Louis Doherty, Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries.

For other related archival and manuscript collections, please see the following subject guides.

Selected Search Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in the University of Maryland Libraries' Catalog. Researchers desiring related materials about these topics, names, or places may search the Catalog using these headings.